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Putting California Into Words
by Tim Rutten, Los Angeles Times
California — and particularly Los Angeles — may defy comprehension, but they cannot escape explanation.

The Riches Of The $12 Room
by Daisann McLane, New York Times
Cheap hotels have a personality that is unmediated by designers and corporate honchos.

From 'Hanukah' To Eternity
by Paul Farbi, Washington Post
What's so funny about identifying who's a Jew? Why is Sandler's song so entertaining to so many people — particularly Jewish people?

Telling It Online: It's A Man's World (Isn't It?)
by Lisa Guernsey, New York Times
Where were the women?

Big Food Has Become A Big Problem
by Ellen Ruppel Shell, Los Angeles Times
Politicians and health officials must address pandemic obesity.

Pilgrims' Pit Stop
by Hank Stuever, Washington Post
On the way to Thanksgiving, Maryland house sees a comucopia of America.

The New Gatekeepers At The Restroom Door
by Eric Asimov, New York Times
Like an endangered species that suddenly appears in every backyard, restroom attendants are showing up in restaurants where you least expect to find them, and in greater numbers than you might imagine.

The Gift Of Mayhem
by Bob Herbert, New York Times
Millions of American adults have lost all sense of what are appropriate forms of play for children and teenagers.

The Truth About Squire Romolee
by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, New York Times
Thanksgiving's authenticity does not derive from its history but from the way it renews, year after year, the dream of American abundance.

Why Self-Esteem Doesn't Work
by Mary Ann Sieghart, The Times
We must teach our children to fend for themselves and to cope when life deals them a low blow.

Bye-Bye, Burgers
by James M. Pethokoukis, U.S. News
Americans are really chowing down at 'quick casual' restaurants.

Yes, But Are You Happy?
by John Balzar, Los Angeles Times
Money may be good, but friends — be they real or imaginary — are better.

Paul And George, Yesterday Meets Tomorrow
by Eli Attie, Washington Post
Harrison's and McCartney's albums are not merely as reflections of different lifestyle choices, but also are interpretations of rock itself.

A Wanderer At Home In Grass And Stardust
by Dennis Overbye, New York Times
Where is home, cowboy? My mind buzzed.

Lost On The Air: The Write Stuff
by Mike Penner, Los Angeles Times
In the desire to be seen and heard, loudly, sports reporters are getting more exposure — at the cost of credibility.

Solaris, Rediscovered
by Gary Wolf, Wired
Stanislaw Lem made hard science and deep philosophy into some of the greatest science fiction you've never seen. Now his classic Solaris is getting the Hollywood treatment.

Barcelona's Great Urban Spaces
by Jacqueline Friedrich, New York Times
The city has a long, complex history, distinguished by an unquenchable desire for independence.

The Censor And The Artist: A Murky Border
by Emily Eakin, New York Times
In this evolving environment, artists seeking access to images and information often find themselves in battle with companies determined to protect their content and trademarks from unauthorized use.

A Mummy's Bequest: Poems From A Master
by John Noble Wilford, New York Times
A mummy's gift, a forsaken papyrus scroll borne these 2,100 years or so over an entombed breast, now stands revealed to scholars as a multifaceted jewel of epigrammatic poetry from the cultural heyday of Alexandrian Egypt.

The Secret Life Of Us
by Jeanette Winterson, The Guardian
We censor it, sentimentalise it, treat it as a commodity. But we can't reduce its power. Why art now matters more than ever.

Neverending Siesta
by Kevin Sullivan and Mary Jordan, Washington Post
At Mexico's Hacienda de San Antonio, the only stress is saying no to all the pampering. So don't.

Writer Dan Savage's Sins And Sensibility
by Peter Carlson, Washington Post
"The Internet enabled the 42 American guys who like to have sex while dressed up as stuffed animals to find each other. And now they have conventions, too."

A Pig Returns To The Farm, Thumbing His Snout At Orwell
by Dinitia Smith, New York Times
An American novelist has written a parody of "Animal Farm," and the estate of George Orwell is not happy about it.

Oversimulated Suburbia
by David Brooks, New York Times
I don't know if it strikes you as odd that of all the arenas of human endeavor, the one that has produced the best-selling computer game of all time is the American suburb.

They Call Me Assassin
by Caroline F. Campion, New York Times
Hidden within one of the most benign of New York establishments, the neighborhood deli, dwells a silent killer. The fiend in question is not insidious bacteria, or even Steven Seagal. He is a cat, and that is often the only name he has: "Cat."

Are You Panicking Yet?
by Ann Treneman, The Times
I realised it made sense to strip Christmas of all emotion and treat it as a military operation.

What's The Big Idea?
by Guy Claxton, The Observer
Where do creative people get their inspiration, and why we're all more creative than we think.

Go West, Young Mutant
by Michael T. Jarvis, Los Angeles Times
In Southern California, Sci-Fi found a space in the sun.

Is This Any Way To Run A Divorce?
by Bob Thompson, Washington Post
When Eli and Debbie split up, after 15 years of marriage, they worked really hard to do right by their kids. The result looks a lot different from the stereotypes.

Why Does Everyone Loves Raymond?
by Virginia Heffernan, Slate
CBS' Seinfeld for Catholics.

Deadlin Hollywood: The Untold Story
by Nikki Finke, LA Weekly
How corporate takeovers make the media less curious.

Reflections On A Half-Century In And Around Newsroom
by James B. McClatchy, Sacramento Bee
The commercial terms "properties" or "products" dehumanize newspapers, making them impersonal businesses without souls. The Sacramento Bee is not a property or product. It is an institution —an exceedingly fine one; a proud newspaper with a heart.

Truth Is Another Country
by Timothy Garton Ash, The Guardian
It may seem a grave limitation for any writer to leave the facts as facts, but self-limitation is a key to art. On this frontier we should stand.

Luxury Goods Special: Confessions Of A Dustjacket Junkie
by David Lovibond, The Spectator
The highs and lows of being addicted to collecting books.

Turkey Finds Its Inner Duck (And Chicken)
by Amanda Hesser, New York Times
They call it turducken: testing the Southern tradition of a bird within a bird within a bird.

England's Must-Pay TV
by Jacob Sager Weinstein, TV Barn
And you thought HBO had a brilliant business model.

Rainy Day Demands A Script Revise
by Mary McNamara, Los Angeles Times
What's a kid to do on a rainy afternoon in L.A.? Write a comedy script, of course.

Zines, In A Zone All Their Own
by Peter Carlson, Washington Post
Zine Guide is, in short, a celebration of the weirder fruits of the First Amendment.

Egon Kafka, The Man Who Couldn't Stop Taking Buses
by William Booth, Washington Post
The mania to collect is well known, but not clearly understood.

Haggis, The Food Of Poets (Well, One Scottish Poet)
by Warren Hoge, New York Times
Consider the haggis and you may well wonder how it inspired a rhapsodic poem, became Scotland's national dish and touched off an incipient rebellion when Britain's food safety office hinted that it might ban it.

Paul Muldoon Doesn't Mind Being Called A Difficult Poet
by Dinitia Smith, New York Times
He is writing difficult poetry for a diffcult age.

Lilly Heir Makes $100 Million Bequest To Poetry Magazine
by Stephen Kinzer, New York Times
An ailing heir who tried but failed to have her poems published in a small literary journal has given that journal an astonishing bequest that is likely to be worth more than $100 million.

Mr. Resident
by Liza Mundy, Washington Post
A gavel stroke away from being the world's most powerful human, he becomes someone's suburban neighbor instead. What is that like? Al Gore wasn't telling...until now.

Asia Scares America
by Richard Corliss, Time
A Japanese thriller gets a Hollywood remake, and suddenly U.S. moguls are mad for Eastern movies.

Ha Ha Ha Ha—Huh?
by Dan Gilgoff, U.S. News
Fred Flintstone on trial. Scooby Doo on dope. There's something funny going on in TV cartoons.

The Calculator
by Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker
How Kenneth Feinberg determines the value of three thousand lives.

Trading Fiction's Comfort For A Chance To Look Life In The Eye
by Amy Bloom, New York Times
I didn't know that exploring the truth of some people's lives, and the stories they had to tell, would overturn my prejudices and my common sense and poke a sharp stick into the blind spots.

The Costly Case Of The Purple Pill
by Neil Swidey, Boston Globe
The story of one blockbuster heartburn drug tells you everything you need to know about the high cost of prescription medicine.

The Generation Gap
by Barbara Ellen, The Observer
Still waiting for your real life to start? Maybe you've got a 'placebo' existence.

Bringing Up Baby
by Dave Bary, Washington Post
A survival guide to the pitfalls of parenting.

Office Envy
by Jeanne marie Laskas, Washington Post
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's bookcase.

This Is A Headline For An Essay About Meta
by Laura Miller, New York Times
Not quite parody but possibly ironic and probably postmodern — what these jokes are, as the former English majors out there will no doubt recognize, is meta.

Central Florida, Pre-Mickey
by Susan Harb, New York Times
There are places where river cruises encounter real snakes and gators, not mechanical creations; where stately live oaks are the topiaries of cow pastures; and where your fish dinner comes from the lake where you caught it.

Making His Numbers
by George Conrades, New York Times
Life is a sine curve, with its endless ups and downs. Things are never as good as they seem, or as bad as they seem.

Seven Inches Of Heaven
by Peter Paphides, The Guardian
In the century of popular culture, no item of software wielded as much influence as the seven-inch record.

Teachers Wrap Lessons In Fiction
by Patricia Cohen, New York Times
Looking for fresh ways to engage overloaded students, a growing number of professors at big universities and small colleges are supplementing traditionally sober textbooks with a curious genre: the textbook-novel.

Toy Makers Hope Children Will See Oldies As Goodies
by Tracie Rozhon, New York Times
For toy makers approaching Christmas, this is not a big year for originality.

A Life That Gained In The Translation
by Linton Weeks, Washington Post
Tatiana Kudriavtseva, bringing Russia the best of American literature.

Soft News And Hard Candy
by Jack Shafer, Slate
The Wall Street Journal's "Personal Journal" is too much of a good thing.

Japan's Lunchbox Fare Pleases Eye, Palate
by Deb Samuels, Boston Globe
A colorful, enticing meal is important in Japanese families. The Japanese learn early on to "eat with their eyes."

Where Witty Meets Gritty
by Holland Cotter, New York Times
Manhattan's Lower East Side, the underground's underground, is becoming gallery territory.

Musical Chairs
by Martha Brant, Newsweek
Newsweek is moved from Row 3 to Row 6 in the White House briefing room. Bob Uecker would be proud.

Will The DVD Save Movies?
by Charles Taylor, Salon
Film purists have long wanted to watch movies "as they were meant to be seen." With the art house all but dead, the future of film is right there in your living room.

Grin And Hug It
by Don Oldenburg, Washington Post
Bearing up well, the ubiquitous Teddy turns 100.

How To Build A Better Bureaucrat
by Roxanne Roberts, Washington Post
Take integrity and hard work and shower with praise.

BYOB, But It'll Cost You
by Valli Herman-Cohen, Los Angeles Times
More people are bringing their own wine, and restaurants are fighting back with tougher rules and corkage fees as high as $50.

If You're Beautiful, Life Is Easy
by Giles Whittell, The Times
It began with entertainment, the arts and sport, but now in every walk of life looks are a more important guide to success than talent. It's all over for the fat lady, whether she can sing or not.

It Takes A Wedding
by Alex Kotlowitz, New York Times
Might marriage be making a comeback in communities where the vast majority of children are born to single parents?

Waiter, Are There Carbs In My Soup?
by Julia Moskin, New York Times
New York City restaurants are being swarmed by a fat-seeking, protein-craving army.

The Big Flavors Of Little Rhode Island
by Paul Lukas, New York Times
If the notion of Rhode Island food specialties seems dubious, think again.

Thong Of The South
by Dahlia Lithwick, Slate
How a Kentucky smut shop put the starch in Victoria's Secret's shorts.

Putting Letterman On Radio Is A Stupid Corporate Trick
by Robert Philpot, Star-Telegram
Letterman on radio is a boneheaded idea, largely because Letterman relies on a lot of visual shtick.

Match Made In Heaven, Match Made In Hell
by Salon
True-life tales of lust, horror — and martial bliss — from the world of online romance.

Movie Retreads On The Skids
by Patrick Goldstein, Los Angeles Times
No matter how hard Hollywood tries to brainwash moviegoers into embracing familiarity, when we gather in the dark we crave something fresh and new.

The Whole Mom Catalogue
by Roxanne Roberts, Washington Post
A hot new novel addresses career mothers. It's total fiction.

A Writer Leaves History Behind To Celebrate Trees
by Claudia Dreifus, New York Times
Thomas Pakenham is an Anglo-Irish military historian who has taken to writing about trees: great trees and how to appreciate them.

Are We There Yet?
by Kevin Peraino, Newsweek
Airports have to meet tougher standards for checking baggage this holiday season. Get ready for a big mess.

When The Audience Is Scarier Than The Movie
by Al Martinez, Los Angeles Times
I challenged movie demographics the other night and ended up in teenage hell. It wasn't so much the film, which was "The Ring," but the audience. Ninety percent of it consisted of those between the ages of 13 and 16, and they were there to be heard.

There Shouldn't Be A Remote Control On How We Watch DVDs
by Ernest Miller, Los Angeles Times
What would you think if you had to get permission from the architect before you could have your house painted another color? How would you feel if the photographer had to agree with your selection of a frame for a favorite photograph? What if the director of a movie could decide when it was OK for you to fast-forward through a DVD you had rented?

Gone With The Wind
by Linton Weeks, Washington Post
Has the once-towering genre of Southern Literature lost its compass?

HarperCollins Plans The Timing Of 'Prey' Almost To A Nanosecond
by Bill Goldstein, New York Times
The planning behind the date's selection, and the intensely concentrated promotion that will accompany "Prey," show how the "opening" of a major book has increasingly come to resemble the opening of a movie.

Aspiring Screenwriters Turn To Web For Encouragement
by Matthew Mirapaul, New York Times
Internet sites for amateur screenwriters are opening faster than James Bond sequels.

A Call To Honor
by Lucian K. Truscott IV, New York Times
My father died two years ago. He was a veteran of two wars, in Korea and Vietnam, and for reasons of his own, he didn't want the military funeral he was entitled to. But Veterans Day seems like a good time to honor his service to his country with a story about his lifelong love of the bugle call, taps.

The Art Of Entertaining
by David Lansing, Los Angeles Times
Dinner parties are back, but formality is not. Think intimate late-night gatherings with an eclectic guest list and surprising presentation. Southern Californians show us the new wave of party-giving.

The Parent Trap
by Christopher Shea, Washington Post
What happens when parents wield too much power over what goes on in their children's schools?

A Classroom Crusade
by Darragh Johnson, Washington Post
Eric Smith wants to prove he can eliminate the achievement gap that divides blacks and Hispanics from Asians and whites. His stint in Maryland will put him to the test.

Knocked Off
by Charles McGrath, New York Times
If a novel has already brought to life — real life — the world it invented, can a sequel by another writer possibly get the job done?

For All You Observers Of The Urban Extravaganza
by Herbert Muschamp, New York Times
Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio have defined a new building type for the contemporary city: the urban viewing platform.

A New Platform For The New Poets
by Jon Pareles, New York Times
"Def Poetry Jam on Broadway" combines the ancient traditions of bards and griots and the more recent resurgence of spoken-word and hip-hop.

An Animal's Place
by Michael Pollan, New York Times
Animal rights advocates present a compelling vision of a more moral world. But this vision is ecologically foolhardy — and based on a naÔve definition of animal happiness.

Hide, Seek For Power Bricks
by Chris Muldrow, The Free Lance-Star
Those people who tend to buy consumer electronics have not only run out of money, we've run out of wall outlets.

The World, With A Sigh And A Wink
by Edward Rothstein, New York Times
Yiddish literature can be unpredictably unsettling, combining innocence and sentiment with dark sarcasm and knowing irony.

Sky Mall Reminds Us You Can Never Be Too Careful
by Lawrence Cohen, Boston Globe
It wasn't the heightened security efforts at airports that got me, or the need to look carefully at all the other passengers' shoes, but a fascinating catalog provided on airplanes called Sky Mall.

It's Deja Vu For Nostalgic Diners
by Corby Kummer, New York Times
"New York Eats Out" at the New York Public Library gives an all-too-fleeting overview of the city's high and low cuisine for the last 150 years.

Professor Soundbite
by Amy Roe, Willamette Week
Gary Perlsgtein is a "terrorism expert." Because we said so.

Brunettes Have Less Fun
by Bella Bathurst, The Guardian
Why does putting on lipstick make me feel like Lily Savage's corpse?

My Winona
by Andrew Leonard, Salon
What became of you, O alterna-hipster movie goddess of the bygone slacker era? A Winona boy laments his fallen idol.

Pilot Project Is Sending Books To American Troops Abroad
by Mel Gussow, New York Times
The month, the Armed Services Editions are returning with 100,000 copies of new versions of four books being printed in the same wide, brightly colored "cargo pocket" format.

When Did ESPN Stop Doing Sports?
by Robert Weintraub, Slate
The netwok has become the Worldwide Leader in Hot Air.

Genius? Hack? Genius?
by Ian Rothkerch, Salon
Brian De Palma comes clean on his tawdry new film, the old "Scarface" controversy and the reasons "Bonfire of the Vanities" flopped.

Heart Of Understanding
by John Balzar, Los Angeles Times
Literature deepens our thinking in a world of sound bites. On this, dear teachers, surely we can agree.

One Of Those Days When Things Go Right
by Patricia R. Olsen, Melinda Ligos, Stephen Gregory, Jane L. Levere, and compiled by Brent Bowers, New York Times
Business travel has gotten a bad rap, especially after Sept. 11. But now and then, something magical happens.

Tiger In A Lifeboat, Panther In A Lifeboat: A Furor Over A Novel
by Larry Rohter, New York Times
Yann Martel readily admits that his novel, "Life of Pi," the winner of this year's Man Booker Prize, was inspired by the premise of a Brazilian novel.

Say Cheese, For Airport Insecurity And For Art
by Sarah Boxer, New York Times
A Canadian artist gathered an unusual collection of photos taken at security checkpoints by spreading the word on Web 'zines.

Everybody Loves Gilbert!
by Alex Beam, Boston Globe
Economic challenges notwithstanding, we are witnessing a small boom in magazine start-ups.

Voting Into The Void
by Farhad Manjoo, Salon
New touch-screen voting machines may look spiffy, but some experts say they can't be trusted.

Badminton, Anyone?
by Laura Sessions Stepp, Washington Post
The game moves out of the back yard and into the arena, as Americans play catch-up on a global sports favorite.

The Serendipitous Life Of The Solo Voyager
by Geronimo Madrid, New York Times
Those who travel alone return with tales of instant friendships, bouts of loneliness, romantic fantasies and peeks at myriad lives.

For Canada's Top Novelists, Being Born Abroad Helps
by Cliford Krauss, New York Times
A good many if not a majority of the leading lights of Canadian letters today are immigrants, including the three finalists for the Booker Prize this year.

This Contest Was Won Four Centuries Ago
by Roy Hattersley, The Guardian
Shakespeare is the greatest Briton. He invented our national identity.

The Honeymooners
by Libby Copeland, Washington Post
68 years later, couple travels in parents' footsteps.

Magazine's Ink Running Out
by Frank Ahrens, Washington Post
Business Foward gets its own lesson in local economics.

Fir The Irish, Long-Windedness Serves As A Literary Virtue
by Maeve Binchy, New York Times
The Irish don't really think about writing, it is just a natural extension of what we do all the time, which is talking.

A Voice Inside
by Kerry Madden, Los Angeles Times
We can put throwaway kids in prison, but that doesn't mean they'll be quiet.

An Enduring Elitist And His Popular Museum
by Michael Kimmelman, New York Times
People can agree about two things when it comes to art museums now, that they're popular, and that they are suffering an identity crisis.

What, Me Worry About Insults?
by Thomas Vinciguerra, New York Times
With the 50th anniversary issue now on newsstands, here are some past love letters to Mad.

The Romance Of The Monorail
by Brendan I. Koerner, Slate
The mass transit technology of Tomorrowland finally reaches today.

What Did Poe Know About Cosmology? Nothing. But He Was Right.
by Emily Eakin, New York Times
Eighty years before 20th-century cosmologists hammered out the math, Poe, it turns out, came up with a rudimentary version of contemporary science's best guess for explaining how the universe began.

"How Did I Do This Before Google?"
by Willizam Prochnau, American Journalism Review
The relationship between newspapers and computers got off to a shaky start, but it was destined to go the distance. What are the ramifications?

Classroom Research And Cargo Cults
by E.D. Hirsch Jr., Policy Review
After many years of educational research, it is disconcerting — and also deeply significant — that we have little dependable research guidance for school policy.

Red Scare
by Jack Shafer, Slate
In Chicago, the Tribune Co.'s Red Eye races Hollinger's Red Streak to the bottom.

The Pinch Of Piracy Wakes China Up On Copyright Issue
by Joseph Kahn, New York Times
Throughout the 1990's, intellectual property was mainly seen as a trade dispute pitting the wealthy West against the developing East. It's now also a domestic struggle, with local stars complaining that they get little fortune from their own fame.